


A Sense for Death

by allfireburns



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Aliens, Angst, Cell Phones, Character of Color, Deathfic, F/M, Grief, Injury, POV Third Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-01
Updated: 2009-12-01
Packaged: 2017-10-04 02:00:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allfireburns/pseuds/allfireburns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You die enough times, you develop a sort of sense for oncoming death. Trouble is, it's not always precise enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Sense for Death

As the SUV stopped, Jack reached over to grab Martha's arm, before she could open the door. She stopped and blinked at him in surprise, a bit of a frown on her face. "What is it?"

"You know the sleeper agents can come from anywhere, look like anyone, right?" He kept his hand on her arm, and she didn't shake him off, though she did roll her eyes at him.

"No, I've no idea, because you've only been telling me for the past month, and I'm quite daft, all those years of medical school."

Jack gave a sheepish smile. "Alright, you don't need the lecture. I just wanted to say... they're fast. And they come out of nowhere. If one of them kills me-"

"Jack. I promise if one of them kills you, I won't stop to worry about you."

The way she was smiling... well, obviously she was joking, but he had to be sure she took it seriously underneath that. He tightened his grip on her arm just a little.

"I mean it. Not even for a second. You take care of yourself, and I'll be back as soon as I can to help."

Martha sobered, reaching over to squeeze his shoulder reassuringly. "I promise," she said, and then added with a frown, "What makes you so sure you're going to die?"

"Just a feeling," he said, finally letting go of her arm. "A sense. When you've done it as many times as I have, you get that." He reached over and opened the door at last. "Let's go."

He was, of course, right about his feeling. He usually was. The only warning they had was a slight beeping from a passerby, that could have come from a mobile or something if it weren't for the unusually ridged skin on the woman's forearm. Jack started to reach for his Webley, but a fraction of a second too late. The massive blade punctured his chest, aimed straight for the heart. A sudden pain, more like getting hit in the chest with a bowling ball than being stabbed, and then nothing but darkness.

Waking up from death was always the same, with no awareness of the time that passed. Three seconds was the same as three minutes was the same as three days. He woke gasping, air cold in lungs that must have been lacerated not long ago, and tasted hot metal on the back of his tongue.

Not metal. Blood. And not his.

Jack opened his eyes and realized he was lying in warm, sticky blood. He never bled that much - he never had time.

Rolling to one side, he found what he'd known and dreaded he would, Martha fallen on her back, her eyes closed. He'd have thought she was only sleeping, but Jack had seen enough corpses to know the way all muscle tension left them, to sense that feeling of vacancy.

And if that didn't convince him, the multiple massive, stomach-churning punctures and gashes on her torso would have. Her ribs glistened white under the streetlights, her blood dark, almost black except where the light shone off it. It had been a long time since Jack had felt like throwing up at the sight of a body, even of someone he cared about, but now his stomach rolled, his heart bounding so hard in his chest he couldn't hear over his own heartbeat.

He promised he'd come back to help her, and he had - but obviously much, much too late.

* * *

Usually Jack didn't have this problem. Usually when someone connected to Torchwood died, their bodies were stored in the Hub, their possessions packed away in a storehouse, an entire life belonging to Torchwood. Usually their families didn't get an explanation.

But "usually" didn't apply to Martha Jones, the woman who walked the earth. He knew her family, he'd trusted her more than he ever had anyone but Rose and the Doctor, and he'd made the mistake of thinking she was invincible. She survived that year, alone - what could possibly destroy her after that?

Except, Jack thought bitterly, his own stupidity and carelessness.

The rest of the team had gone, retreating to work at their desks in the atrium and leaving Jack alone in the autopsy room with Martha. Not that an autopsy was needed. It was just where they kept the bodies until they were stored.

Standing there, arms crossed, expressionless, Jack couldn't stop staring at her. He tried. Owen had put a sheet over her, up to her collarbones, but it didn't help. The blood soaked through, horrendous, ghastly, _bright_ red against the white, and the beginning of one of the wounds was still visible over the top of the sheet, starting at the joint of her shoulder and neck, the white of her collarbone glinting against torn flesh before it vanished underneath the stained sheet.

He closed his eyes and forced himself to turn his face away, forced himself to _breathe_, though it felt like something had constricted around his chest, and each breath tore at his heart. He'd have died a hundred thousand times in her place.

Jack opened his eyes, and they settled on the small box of personal things she'd had on her - they hadn't gotten around to collecting the things of hers scattered around the Hub, so it was mostly just her clothes (simple, black, as they tended to be since the year that never was), her wallet, her gun, her phone. Martha Jones didn't travel with much, because a year of running with nothing but the clothes on your back, a vortex manipulator, and what you could carry in a backpack would do that to a person.

He taught her to use that gun, picked it out specifically for her from the assortment of weapons Torchwood had collected over the years. UNIT had taught her to shoot too, of course, but they did it all wrong. _Jack_ taught her properly, and he'd never let her forget that - mostly because of that look she got when trying not to smile, whenever he reminded her.

It wasn't the gun he picked up, but the phone. He scrolled through the numbers quickly, smiling a little when he reached the one he was looking for. The first number on her speed dial, of course, though she'd never actually called it, to his knowledge.

There were a lot of people he had to tell. But first of all... Jack drew a breath and pressed "send".

The phone rang. And rang. And rang. Eventually, it went to voicemail, and of course a certain _someone_ hadn't bothered to change the message. Jack drew a ragged breath at the voice on the recording.

"You've reached Martha Jones. Chances are I'm either sleeping or saving someone's life right now, so I can't come to the phone, but if you leave a message I'll get back to you just as soon as I'm-"

Jack heard a beep as _someone_ picked up the phone, and he thought he might have heard a very familiar sonic whirring in the background, though it died away quickly.

"Martha! You called! I'd been wondering when you'd get around to that, because-"

"We're running for our lives and you're taking _phone calls_?" said an unfamiliar voice in the background.

"Well, actually, I don't have time to chat. Like she said, running for our lives. But if you'll just tell me the date and time, I promise I'll be there in two seconds, as soon as we've gotten away from the various people who intend to see us dead."

"Doctor," Jack said quietly.

All the jocularity and manic energy went out of the Doctor's voice. "Jack? What- where's Martha?"

Jack took a breath.


End file.
